


sei la mia città

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Break Up, that's it this is a break up fic, this is a mess im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He falls out of love with Javi eight months after they break up.





	sei la mia città

He falls out of love with Javi eight months after they break up.

It happens sometime during late April, when Javi tells him that he should come over and take his stuff from Javi’s apartment. They’d never managed to find the time to do it, with Javi always spouting some excuse about it being Olympic season and that they should focus on training, or that they’d have time afterwards. Yuzuru had nodded and agreed with whatever excuse Javi put out, despite having ample time while recovering from his injury-- partially because he didn’t want to spend more time being awkward and alone with Javi and partially because he wanted to keep the clothes that he’d borrowed (stolen) from Javi over the years, as if it would make him less lonely when Javi left.

That morning, Yuzuru ties the box of Javier’s clothing to his Mom’s grocery carrier and hobbles to Javi’s apartment on two crutches.

“Hey Yuzu,” Javi says, looking disheveled and half awake but more lively than he’d seemed for the past year.

“Hi,” Yuzuru says. An awkward silence follows as they look at each other through the door frame. He’s almost content to just stand there, drinking in Javi’s appearance but there’s a quiet anxiety that gnaws at his chest, reminding him that he’s stepped foot into uncharted territories.

“Can I come in?” The tension snaps and eases and Yuzuru rips his eyes from Javi’s form.

“Yeah, here lemme take that,” Javi reaches for the carrier and hauls it into the apartment while Yuzuru sets his crutches against the wall inside and toes his shoes off. “How’d you even get here with the crutches and the box? If you told me earlier I could have driven you.”

“Doctor said only need them when walking for longer. Took the bus, didn’t want to bother you.”

Javi gives him a look that says “ _Really Yuzuru?_ ” but hands him his crutches anyway as they walk into the living room.

The apartment is still mostly intact, aside from the large cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the room. It smells like a familiar combination of coffee and cologne and cat (like Javi), and Yuzuru takes in another breath just to cement the scent in his memory because of how much it feels like home. The last time he was here they’d curled together on the couch and he’d tucked his face into Javi’s neck as Javi carded his fingers through Yuzuru’s hair and told him that they should break up and Yuzuru said “okay” and Javi drove him home.

It had been such a clean cut that it didn’t hurt, still didn’t hurt. The world kept spinning and Olympic season was still happening and everything was the same except that they were over, which was okay.

He helps Javi unpack his clothes before he starts removing his own items from the apartment, somewhat disappointedly noting the absence of Effie.

Yuzuru decides to go to the bathroom first. His toothbrush is still there in the cup, his extra hair gel still in the cabinet and his shampoo still in the shower. He takes the shampoo bottle, shakes the water off and thinks of the time that Javi had gently rubbed it into his hair sometime after Boston when he’d shown up at Javi’s apartment too tired to even cry.

There’s a part of him that hates removing these items from their place, as if his toothbrush is supposed to be on Javi’s sink even though it isn’t. There’s also a part of himself that’s angry at himself for feeling that way. At the very least he’ll have two toothbrushes at home now, right?

Yuzuru heads to the kitchen next, where he finds Javi digging through drawers as he wraps cutlery up in newspaper before gently placing them into boxes. Javi’s back draws a delicate curve as he kneels and Yuzuru remembers how it feels beneath his palms, all muscle and all warmth. In some way, he thinks that Javi reminds him of a rock or a mountain, always grounded and there for him when he jumps. A warm, sun-kissed, Spanish rock.

“Do you want these back?” Javi asks, waving a bundle of chopsticks in his hand.

Yuzuru shakes his head. “You can keep. Maybe you can use in Spain.”

Javi chuckles and looks down before adding the bundle into the box as well. “I put the green tea on the counter by the way, I know you’ll want that.”

Yuzuru grabs the box of green tea leaves adds it to his bag of items that he wishes could stay in Javi’s apartment.

They eat takeout for lunch standing in Javi’s now empty kitchen, looking out at Javi’s box-filled living room, where the only two pieces of furniture left untouched are the couch and television (both of which Javi decides not to take back to Spain). Yuzuru gathers the courage to ask Javi whether he can help Javi pack the rest of his belongings that are going to Spain.

The afternoon whittles away as they empty Javi’s room of its contents, as they empty the apartment of its blood and organs. All that remains is a series of interconnected rooms, the rigid walls of skin that once held Yuzuru’s third home in Toronto. He imagines that he is Javi’s apartment, and that he’s keeled over in front of the toilet regurgitating all of his warmth and being (the way that he did a week after the disastrous NHK Trophy, his mother’s hand on his back, before he went to the rink the next day and told Javi that he was fine).

Everything goes into the boxes. Javi’s jackets and costumes. The lamp that Effie knocked over the day Yuzuru realized that he was six feet deep in love. The football posters on the wall because “ _Real Madrid is the best team, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a game live-- are you listening_?”. The bedsheets and blankets that they curled between, tangled up in each other and a thousand promises and confessions (“ _te amo, te amo_ ” his brain offers).

They get to the display cabinet just as the sun goes down. A ray of sun catches on Javi’s Olympic medal and it looks too much like gold.

“We’ll have to take them out and dismantle the case,” Javi says.

“Get a new case when you go to Spain,” Yuzuru says as he squints at the case, counting the medals and prizes in his head.

“Why?” Javi’s head whips around so fast that Yuzuru laughs.

“Need more space for next Europeans medal.”

“Last Euros medal,” Javi corrects, as if to rub it into Yuzuru’s face a little more. Yuzuru isn’t sure how to reply, so they fall back into silence as they finish off packing the rest of Javi’s room.

The evening finds Yuzuru reluctant to leave, curled into one side of the couch with Javi on the other, cheesy movie playing on the television. If Yuzuru tries hard enough, he can pretend that it’s eight months ago: he’s not injured, they’re not over, and they’ll fall asleep watching old movies, Yuzuru’s face buried into Javi’s neck, Javi’s fingers on his waist and in his hair.

Loss creeps in like the winter, slow and unnoticed until Yuzuru realizes that it’s been ensnared around his heart for eight months; that he’s been hurting for eight months. The phantom limb of their relationship has been throbbing and aching for so long that he hadn’t noticed- not when he smiled at Javi from the second place podium at Montreal, not when they’d skated together the day before the free skate, not when he cried and clung to Javi and told him that he couldn’t do it without him while Javier’s girlfriend watched from Madrid.

It’s almost freeing, Yuzuru realizes, to finally be feeling the pain. It makes their relationship feel real. It makes their breakup feel real.  
It’s also crushing, Yuzuru realizes, for the fantasy dissipate. It makes it hard to breathe. It makes it hard to accept that _Javi doesn’t love him anymore_. He also realizes, with a painful start, that he doesn’t know when Javi stopped loving him.

There’s a weight on Yuzuru’s chest as he stands up, crutches in hand.

“I should go.”

“Okay.”

They walk to the door, and Yuzuru feels a familiar sting in his eyes and in his throat because this is goodbye.

Javi can see his tears even in the darkness of the apartment, and pulls Yuzuru into a hug in the doorway. The crutches dig into his ribs and arms as Javi embraces him. It feels like a lifetime before Yuzuru allows himself to return the hug, crutches clattering to the ground.

“I’ll still be here before Euros you know,” Javi whispers, “It’s not forever”

“I know,” Yuzuru says, words garbled by tears. His voice sounds ugly and loud in comparison to Javi’s quiet reassurance.

Javi rubs a hand against Yuzuru’s back. “You’ll be fine, Yuzu. You can do it.”

Yuzuru doesn’t know what “it” means anymore, but he nods into Javi’s shoulder. He can’t stop crying and he curses himself for it.

“Javi.”

“Yes?”

“One question,” Yuzuru hesitates, takes a shaky breath, before throwing all caution to the wind. “When did you- when did you stop loving me?”

Javi pulls back to look Yuzuru in the face, eyes frantic. “No, no. Never stopped loving you. Just- how do you say it?” Javi slows down, cups Yuzuru’s face in his palm. “I don’t- didn’t love you in the same way anymore. Does that make sense?”

It does, and Yuzuru’s heart sinks. It takes a terrible and excruciating amount of effort to force out his next words, wishing that Javi wasn’t holding him, touching him.

“When?”

Javi sighs. “I don’t know. When I stopped loving Toronto maybe? When I wanted to go home.” He wraps his arms around Yuzuru again, gently, hesitant.

“I’m sorry, Yuzu.”

Javi’s embrace is warm.

“Don’t apologize, I forgive you already.” And he does. Yuzuru understands. Because Javi would always be irrevocably connected to Toronto, at least for Yuzuru. Separating the two would be like splitting a hair, like peeling off his own skin. He imagines that it’s the same for Javi, Javi, who’s leaving it all behind. After all, Madrid would always be, will always be, Javi’s first love.

Javi squeezes Yuzuru tight in his arms, mumbles a “thank you” in his hair.

After an eternity, they finally unwind from their embrace. Yuzuru feels warm even without Javi’s arms around him, without Javi’s hand on his waist or cupping his cheek. They say their half goodbyes which hang in the air long after they’ve been spoken.

Before he closes the door, Yuzuru reaches out to place a hand on Javi’s shoulder.

“Thank you. I’m sorry that I’m still in love with you.”

He closes the door, doesn’t turn back to look at Javi’s face, leaves as fast as he can so that he can pretend that he doesn’t notice Javi opening the door to ask what he meant.

Then Yuzuru cries. He cries six years worth of tears, purges himself of six years worth of love. He preserves his precious memories in jars of tears, and holds them close to his heart so he doesn’t forget.

He lets his love go. Eight months late, he falls out of love gracelessly, the same way he fell into it.

Yuzuru is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year and thanks for reading!
> 
> This hasn't really been edited or planned out well, so there will be mistakes. I just needed to get this out of my head, so here we are w/ this mess of a fic. It's missing Yuzu hours (aka 2am) up in this house rn. I’ll probably delete this later b/c the embarrassment is kinda strong w this one.
> 
> Here's to wishing for the best in 2019 for everyone.


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